Immortal
by tetedemort
Summary: Sylar and the twins have made it to New York, but the solutions to their problems are further out of reach than they anticipated.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Heroes._

**Chapter One**

"_The first condition of immortality is death._" Stanislaw J. Lec

He enjoyed fixing things almost as much as he enjoyed destroying them.

Almost.

The itch came to him as he stood at the counter in the busy airport. It had been ages since he last had time to think about his broken watch, ages since he'd had time to rest. He looked down at it now, eyes fixing on the minute hand frozen always at seven minutes to midnight. The gears wanted to work, he could feel them straining to fight their death–

"And how may I help you today, sir?" A smiling blonde stood behind the counter, ready at her computer.

Sylar smiled back and kept his lips pulled away from his teeth as he spoke. "Yes, I would like three tickets to New York, please."

The woman looked around his shoulder and frowned when she saw the nervous-looking twins shifting behind him. Sylar could see the direction her mind was heading, and he could see just what he needed to do to divert it.

He leaned over the counter slightly, his stomach pressing up against the edge. "I'm bringing my friends home. Their parents were murdered recently." His voice was low and confidential; he smiled. "Terrible tragedy. We just want to get home."

She looked back at them with more sympathy. "Yes," she said, shaking her head, "yes, of course." Her fingers flew lightly over the keys on the keyboard. "There's a flight to New York in two hours. I can get you seats, but they won't all be together. Is that all right?"

"It's fine."

"Form of identification, please."

Sylar looked over his shoulder and nodded toward the counter. Maya and Alejandro searched through their bags and pulled out their passports, slightly battered and worn. Sylar placed his on top of the pile and pushed them towards the woman.

It had been easy enough to change the most important information. Sylar supposed that it came with the territory; if he knew how things worked, then of course he'd know what it is that humans would and wouldn't notice.

The woman handed him back the passports, her expression never showing recognition or fear.

Good.

"Here are your tickets, have a nice flight."

Sylar nodded politely at her as he led Maya and Alejandro away.

As soon as they were out of the crowds, Maya gripped onto Sylar's arm. "Gabriel," she said, and that was all she needed to say; her voice carried with it all the joy she felt, the hope, the reverence, the worship.

He smiled benevolently down at her, and his eyes were drawn to Alejandro's face. When he noticed Sylar watching, he looked away, but the muscles in his jaw tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed. "It's bad to grind your teeth, you know," he said, even though he knew that Alejandro wouldn't understand him. But there are some things that are the same no matter what language you speak: derision is one of them.

Maya pressed her shoulder hard into Alejandro's chest, speaking a few short words under her breath to him. These were enough to calm him down so that he didn't erupt into violence.

The lines to go through security were long. The three of them stood silently, none of them looking at one another – other than occasional quick glances in Maya's case. Sylar took the blissful silence as an opportunity to eavesdrop on the conversations around him.

"Did you hear what she _did_–?"

"Oh, I know, that man is so unreasonable–"

"Are we almost there? How much longer do we have to wait–?"

"I found the best dress shop the other day–"

Maya clung tighter to his arm the closer they got to the metal detectors. "Gabriel, it will be okay?" she asked in her broken English.

He wasn't worried. What could they find on him, if he didn't have any belongings, nothing but the clothes on his back? "Of course. We have nothing to hide." He grinned down at her and intertwined his fingers with hers. "Nothing that they can find, anyway."

He fancied he could feel her power pulsing beneath her skin, like a second heart; it made him hungry, and it made him really want to repair his watch.

The area immediately before the metal detectors was bustling with action. Businessmen slipped off their polished shoes, children fidgeted, mothers jostled everyone with their strollers. Alejandro pulled Maya closer to him, away from Sylar, as they waited their turn to walk through the gate.

"Next."

Sylar walked through without a sound and stood against the barriers waiting for Maya and Alejandro. Alejandro pushed her forward, made her go first. She looked at the guard with a mixture of guilt and distrust, and she eyed the metal detector warily.

"Please step through, ma'am," the guard said. The man looked to be growing more and more suspicious the longer she stalled.

Her eyes met his; Sylar nodded and beckoned, feeling a bit like he was encouraging a toddler to start walking.

The alarm sounded, a harsh screech. Everyone looked at them.

Of course.

He would have to speak to Maya after they got through all this – if they got through it – to remind her that she was wanted for murder and that such information would likely soon get to the United States, if the police didn't know already. Such negligence couldn't be tolerated.

They had her remove her necklace and belt, and the alarm stayed silent this time. She shuffled over to him and shrank into his side as much as she dared (which wasn't much) to watch Alejandro. If there was one good thing to be said about Alejandro, it was that he at least wasn't as thoughtless as his sister.

At their gate, they found the quietest corner. Maya sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring out the window at the jets taxiing up to the terminal. "Is that ours?" she asked, pointing to the jet that was currently being unloaded.

"No," he said. "We still have a long wait."

Maya didn't say anything, just wrapped her arms tighter around her legs.

Sylar leaned back in the uncomfortable chair and rested a hand lightly on his stomach. His stitches were still far from being healed; the skin was red and swollen and irritated, the stitches themselves cut small incisions into the soft flesh. He shifted a little to keep a better eye on Maya, and his wound twinged. He grunted.

Maya looked over, resting her cheek on an arm; she stood, watching for his reaction. Sitting down next to him on the bench, she leaned her weight against him, resting her head on his shoulder. She saw his hand arching protectively. "Your wound, it still hurts?"

He brushed a finger along the incision, and even through a thick jacket, he still felt the pressure. He shivered. "Wounds like these don't heal quickly." He couldn't stop the bitter thought that, had he been a bit quicker, he would never have woken up in Mexico in the first place. Such a wound would have been nothing with the cheerleader's power.

_But_, he thought to himself when Maya laid a hand on his, _there is always that silver lining_.

Alejandro, who had been watching them carefully and silently jumped to his feet. "Maya," he said sharply. He grabbed her hand away from Sylar's and tried to pull her to her feet, but she resisted. He succeeded in gripping her upper arms and hauling her up, and holding her closed to his face he started speaking to her rapidly in Spanish, not taking care to keep his voice down. Maya shook her head and tried to struggle away, but he held on to her all the tighter. It looked as if he were trying to drag her away, but Maya stubbornly dug in her heels.

The looks the twins were receiving from the other travelers were slightly alarming. Now was no time for rash action, for bringing attention to themselves. He stood up, gripping his stomach and hissed low to them, "You're making people nervous."

"Alejandro is being unreasonable!" Maya said furiously.

Her brother didn't need to understand English to know that she had betrayed him. "_Basta ya_, Maya," he snapped.

He pulled them both down so they sat on either side of him, feeling very much like a father plagued with unruly children. He ignored Alejandro and turned instead to Maya. "What was he saying?"

"He doesn't want to go to New York with you. He said–" She caught Alejandro's expression and her eyes dropped.

"What did he say, Maya?" Alejandro grabbed his shoulder, but Sylar shrugged him off.

"He said– he said we go without you." She grabbed his hand. "But, Gabriel, you know that I can't–!" Whatever else she would have said seemed to be lost in the unfamiliar terrain of English. Instead, she clutched his hand imploringly.

When Sylar glared over his shoulder at him, he saw that Alejandro had subsided, was slouching in his chair with his arms crossed, staring straight ahead. "I understand, Maya. Don't worry, I understand."

"If you do not come," she said haltingly, "how do we find doctor Suresh?"

"You won't have to worry about that," he said, smiling thinly. "I will take you to Suresh. What you should worry about, though, is your brother." He lowered his voice, because he knew that it would catch Alejandro's attention, drive him mad for not being able to understand. "Do you think that he really wants you to get healed? He has suggested an awful lot of times that you give up."

He saw Maya's wide eyes travel from his face to Alejandro's just over his shoulder. Her brows furrowed, and she looked away.

"Just be wary of him," Sylar said.

He let Maya have the window seat, so that she could see the world from so high above, see the mountain ranges and the forests and the plains, the cities and farming country, the ocean. She gazed out the window in awe the whole flight, sometimes tugging on his arm and whispering "Gabriel" excitedly and pointing to something down below them.

Sylar kept himself occupied during the flight. As soon as the plane had leveled off (and as soon as Maya had calmed down enough to loosen her grip on his hand), he took off his watch and bent over the tray table, wearing store-bought glasses that were far too weak and wielding a pair of tweezers that was far too clumsy. But it worked.

It felt good, repairing things again. This had been his talent before, what set him apart, his destiny. How could the watchmaker's son have known that he was destined to one day rid the world of the undeserving, to be the next step in the ladder of evolution?

The gears to his watch had been silent for too long; it took effort to get them moving again. They were stubborn. Turbulence – Sylar slammed his hand down over it so none of the gears were lost beneath the seat with the hard gum and stale peanuts. Maya learned not to bother him, after her insistent shaking of his arm earned a verbal slap from him.

_Tick_.

Finally. He sat back and took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

His watch had died the day he killed Chandra Suresh, and until now he had avoided repairing it, a memory of his transgression – perhaps a deserving one, but a transgression nonetheless. A calm washed over him that he had not felt that night, since seven minutes to midnight.

He felt purged of his sins.

**Author's Note**: It's still a toss-up whether or not I'll continue this. I have several chapters written, but then I decided to take out a character, so I'll have to rewrite them. Title might be temporary, I don't know. Anyway, hope you enjoy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Heroes._

**Chapter Two**

The period of adjustment had been a short one, owing to the fact that none of them had been living in very nice situations before. The four-room apartment – a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and the room that they put the couch in, that they refused to call the living room – was small and cramped and unclean. There were black widow spiders in the showers, and when they first arrived, years of accumulated cobwebs nearly blocked the light from kitchen window. There were cockroaches.

But, as Sylar mused, at least it wasn't a shack in the middle of some forest in Mexico, or a hot car in the middle of the desert, or jail. It would do. They had running water and electricity and often food if they could manage it. The only way they could get what they needed was to steal it; no one would hire serial killers, no matter whether or not they had intended the murders.

Sylar sat hunched over the desk, the lamp hot near his cheek, making him sweat. He squinted down at the watch, not his. Without any source of income or any money, really, they paid their rent by doing small favors for their landlord, Mr. Hodges, whenever he asked, at whatever time of night. Now he was repairing his watch; earlier in the day, he had fixed someone's shower. After being sprayed several times in the ear by the showerhead, Sylar had decided that, as soon as he got his powers back, he would make an exception to his rule of not killing the powerless, just for the landlord.

But for now, he was doing something he knew how to do, and he was calm.

He heard the front door open, and he tensed. If that was Mr. Hodges again, asking another one of his goddamned favors–

"Gabriel," Maya exclaimed, appearing at his shoulder. She reached out to touch him, but thought better of it; she had learned quickly that he wasn't to be disturbed while he was working.

He dropped the last bit in place and screwed on the backing. Turning off the lamp, he stood slowly, listening with chagrined satisfaction as the watch ticked to life. It was a good watch; he was sorry that he would have to return it to Mr. Hodges.

Alejandro stepped forward and snatched the watch from his hands, threw it to the ground. "Always watches," he snapped. His accent was still thick, like the words were complete nonsense to his ears, but he was learning quickly – he had to.

"We can't stay here for free," Sylar said. "Unless, did you think that Mr. Hodges is such a good man that he would let us pay when we had the cash?" He stooped and picked the watch up off the floor. "These _watches_, these _repairs_ that I do are the only reason that Maya isn't in Mr. Hodges's bed every night."

It was probably indicative of the environment Alejandro had been living in the past few weeks that he understood immediately what Sylar said. He pulled Maya back towards him, shielding her.

"You can complain about me all you want when you have a job. But that won't happen anytime soon, now will it?" He brushed past Alejandro into the kitchen.

He had an itch again. He wanted to get out of this place; he didn't belong there. His powers didn't seem so unattainable at times like these, when he could feel his fingertips tingling, when his ears seemed to catch a faint heartbeat, when the insatiable lust for death clouded his judgment.

Maya was at his side again as he reached for a can of whatever they had in the cupboard. She ran her hand along the inside of his forearm, down to his watch band. Sylar stopped what he was doing and let her pull his wrist toward her. "Glass is broken, still," she said.

Sylar smiled. She wasn't lacing her fingers through his, she wasn't looking up at him through her eyelashes, she wasn't leaning her hip into him out of concern for his watch. Alejandro knew it too. He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, letting his fingertips brush her cheek; her surprised blush pleased him, but Alejandro's murderous expression pleased him more.

Abruptly, he took his arm out of her grasp and took out several cans, looking at the labels, eventually deciding on a can of beans. He took out a knife from the drawer, and the way it felt in his hands pleased him most of all.

Alejandro pulled his sister into the bedroom they shared, shutting the door behind him.

"What are you doing, Maya?" he asked, falling easily back into the only language he felt comfortable with.

She pulled away from him, but he just gripped her arms tighter. She had to look away. "What do you mean?"

He gestured wildly with one hand past the bedroom door, out to the kitchen where they could faintly hear the sound of to top of the can being sawed off. But even speaking in Spanish, he couldn't find the words to express what he thought she was doing: "_That_," he said, his voice colored with disgust.

Maya wrenched her arm free from his grasp and held herself, turning away to the window. "He's a good man, Alejandro," she said faintly, "even if you don't see it."

"I know _exactly_ what kind of man he is, and good is not a word I would use to describe him–"

"Why," she said loudly, cutting him off, "are you so determined not to see me happy?" The defiance in her face wavered.

Alejandro took a moment to recover from the shock her question sent through him, and she used this opportunity to stick the knife in further.

"Is it because of my sickness? Because of my curse? You want to see me punished for it. You always have–"

Alejandro gripped his sister's face between her hands, staring intently at her. "_Maya_," he said, and she fell silent. "Maya, do you remember what you said to me, on my wedding day? You said that you didn't like my bride, that you never had, that you never would. You said that she would hurt me."

"She was unfaithf–"

"_Maya_," he snapped, pain causing his voice to rise and shake a bit. When he thought that he had sufficient control over his emotions, he began again. "You said she would hurt me. Maya, is it so hard to see my side of this? Why don't you see him the way I do?" he said savagely. "He's a bastard, Maya. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he treats you like some fawning _slave_. _He is going to hurt you_."

"Gabriel wouldn't," she said weakly, and he could see the sister he once knew back behind her eyes. Unfortunately, she was too trusting. "He cares about me – about us, Alejandro – or else he wouldn't have risked so much, just to get to New York."

Alejandro shook his head. "Then why hasn't he taken us to the doctor yet? Why hasn't he even mentioned him?"

Maya stood up a little straighter. "Then let's go ask him." She took his hand and pulled him to the door. "Come on."

Gabriel stood in front of the stove, stirring the gently simmering pot of beans. The smell of it made Alejandro's stomach grumble.

"Gabriel," Maya said, trying to extract her hand from Alejandro's tight grip; he wouldn't let go. "You said you would bring us to the doctor?"

He looked over his shoulder, expressionless, and then back to the stove. "I did promise, didn't I?"

"So you will take us to him?" Maya looked back at Alejandro, full of enthusiasm.

"I'm afraid that will be a very difficult thing, and not at all helpful." He continued stirring, pulled the spoon out and tasted a few.

Alejandro lost his appetite.

"What do you mean?" she asked, now pulling her arm easily away from Alejandro. She rested a hand on Gabriel's arm. "You mean he won't see us? Is it because we have no money?"

Gabriel let out a sudden bark of laughter. "I'm sure that Chandra would like to see you very much, money or no. He's a bleeding heart when it comes to special people like you." He turned off the stove. "The problem is that he has been dead for several years."

"_You knew_," Alejandro shouted, wanting to pull Maya away but not wanting to get any closer to this madman. "You knew, all along, you knew."

Gabriel glanced at him angrily and said, "How could I know? I haven't been in New York for a long time, and it's not as though we kept in touch. I assumed he had better things to do than write to me." He found a potholder and brought the steaming pot over to the dining table, grabbing a bowl and a spoon before he sat down to eat.

Maya let out a chocked sob, and both of their gazes snapped up to her. "Alejandro," she whimpered brokenly, reaching out to him. He could see the black tears just beginning to pool at the edges of her eyelids.

That was when he heard the first choke from Gabriel. "Stop her," he gasped, head bent over in pain, body curling in on itself.

Alejandro didn't move. Everything would be so much easier without Gabriel, they would be in so much less danger if they just kept to themselves.

But Maya rushed to him and gripped his hands, trying to hold back her tears on her own. "_Por favor, Alejandro_." There was panic in her voice, and it hurt him to hear it.

He gripped her hands, sang to her softly, closed his eyes when the strange tight feeling came over him as Maya calmed. Black tears gone, he held her close to him, resting his cheek against her soft hair; she pulled herself closer to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, buried her head in his shoulder. But she wasn't crying.

Gabriel sat up slowly, watching them with a wariness that looked out of place on his features. "Is she finished?"

The way he phrased the question held a certain coldness that wasn't lost on Alejandro. He held her protectively, and tried to pull her back into the bedroom, but she stopped in the doorway.

Her cheeks were still wet, her eyes red. "What we do now, Gabriel? How will I get cured?"

"I don't know," he said, but what he really seemed to be saying, in Alejandro's mind was, "I don't care."

He pulled her into the bedroom and shut and locked the door behind them.

**Author's Note**: First off, I love my reviewers! Thank you so much; you have no idea just how much your comments mean to me. :D Second off, after episode ten, this is quite obviously AU, although I never really intended it to be anything else. Third off, I hope you enjoyed and keep those reviews coming. (:


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Heroes._

**Chapter Three**

Gabriel was rarely at the apartment for the next few days, and Maya could sense her brother's relief at this. He seemed to think that if Gabriel weren't there, she would love him less; he obviously didn't know just how stubborn her feelings were.

Alejandro used the times when Gabriel wasn't there for trying to get her to help him develop another plan, in which they would escape the clutches of the Devil and go out on their own to find another doctor. But Maya refused calmly and insistently.

"He's probably out finding another doctor as we speak," she said.

Alejandro shook his head at her. "He's not an angel, Maya. He's not some sign from God. He is the Devil; he means to make us stray from our path."

Maya ignored him, and put a newspaper down in front of him. "You need to practice your English." He stared at her with exasperation, but she pointed down at the newspaper.

The front door opened and slammed closed again; they both jumped. Maya stood and sprinted with light steps to see into the entry room. Her face broke into a wide smile. "Gabriel!" She wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on her tip-toes so she could look him in the eyes. "Where have you been, these two days? We've been worried–"

"Not now, Maya" He pulled her arms loose and walked straight to the desk, where he pulled out a small box and took his watch off his wrist.

She hovered behind him long enough to see a clean circle of glass nestled in paper stuffed into the box. He glared at her over his shoulder – his eyes, she noticed, were wilder than usual – and she went back into the kitchen with Alejandro.

"What is it, Maya?" He stood, as if he planned to go beat Gabriel to death at her slightest indication.

"It's nothing. Read," she said shortly.

He read the headlines carefully, tripping over some words, adding in extra syllables or taking out several. It was when he got to the actual articles that Maya saw the frustration blooming on his face, coloring his cheeks red and giving his eyes the same hard look he got when looking at Gabriel.

"Dead girl found alive," Alejandro read.

Maya heard the faint sounds from Gabriel's work area quiet. The chair legs scraped against wooden floor, and his quiet footsteps halted in the doorway that connected the two rooms. She looked up and smiled at him, but he was staring intently at the back of Alejandro's head.

"A local girl found dead last week was discovered by the coroner – Maya, what is 'coroner'?"

"Someone who takes care of the dead," Gabriel said, interrupting her before she could admit that she didn't know.

Alejandro sat up straighter and turned around in his seat to glare back at Gabriel. "What does he want?" he said to Maya.

"Keep reading, Alejandro," she said, watching Gabriel's expression from the corner of her eye. The intensity of it frightened her.

"I won't, not while _he_–"

"Never mind him. Keep reading. Please."

His brows scrunched, and he looked between Maya and Gabriel standing stiffly in the doorway. But he turned back to the paper and continued to struggle through the article, a bit quieter this time. "A young woman found dead last week was discovered by the coroner yesterday to be alive. Doctor Randolph Martins made the shocking discovery last afternoon when, after having performed the autopsy to determine the cause of death and having placed her into the mortuary to await a second opinion, he heard screaming coming from inside. He opened the door and found the girl wide awake, in pain, and bleeding profusely. They rushed her to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery to sew up her numerous wounds from the doctor's earlier examination.

"Doctor Martins has stated that he checked her vitals before beginning his autopsy and that she showed no signs of life. She was in the early stages of decay, he told this reporter.

"Currently this case is under investigation by the police."

Gabriel stepped forward at the end of the article and stared over Alejandro's shoulder at the picture of the girl, taken while she was supposedly dead. Maya watched him, saw his eyes narrow, his brows furrow; he was thinking hard, but about what, Maya couldn't guess.

Just as suddenly as he'd appeared in the doorway to listen, he turned and settled back down at his desk, working on his watch with a renewed calm.

Alejandro read a few more articles, picking and choosing ones that sounded interesting. The next page he turned to, there was a large picture of an Indian man with curly hair and an easy smile. Alejandro scanned it dismissively, and Maya allowed her eyes to wander to Gabriel's stiff back.

Suddenly, Alejandro gripped Maya's arm. She jumped. "Alejandro,_qué haces tú_–?"

"Maya!_Mira!_"

She bent over and looked first at the picture, saw nothing remarkable. "_Qué_, Alejandro?"

"Suresh!" he exclaimed, jabbing his finger into the newspaper and looking happier than Maya had seen him look in half a year. "Mohinder Suresh, _el hijo de doctor Suresh_." He read rapidly, automatically translating it into words he felt comfortable with. "Aquí está nuestra esperanza, Maya," he said, smiling.

Maya accepted the paper from him, still partly in shock. She saw that the book this Mohinder Suresh held in one arm said _Activating Evolution: A New Look_. The cover was very nearly the same as the cover of the book that had been the catalyst for their journey north. It was only then that the shock died down and the excitement and relief took hold.

"Gabriel," she called to him, relieved. "Gabriel, we are saved!" She placed the newspaper next to him at his work desk, so that the picture of Mohinder smiled up at him.

The only indication that he noticed the article was that his hands stopped moving, that he became disturbingly still.

"Gabriel?" Maya ventured carefully. She noticed too late that he was working, remembered too late that this was not the way to direct his attention away from what he was doing–

But he wasn't angry. He said very quietly, "So, little Mohinder decided to follow in his father's footsteps after all."

"You know Mohinder?" she asked, trying to keep the happiness from bubbling over too much.

Gabriel silently made the last adjustments to his watch before screwing everything back in place and refastening it on his wrist. The glass glinted in the lamplight before he turned it off with a decisive _click_. "I do know Mohinder. And because of that, I'm sorry to say that I can't help you there."

**Author's Note**: Hope you enjoyed it, and hope you review. Thanks very much to my reviewers! I really appreciate it!  
I'm terribly sorry if my Spanish is all wrong. See, I don't know any Spanish, and I'm basically working off of a dictionary, a table of verb conjugations, and my knowledge of French. Don't be afraid to correct me.  
Also, since this chapter is so short, I think I will share a bit about my writing process. (If you don't care about this sort of thing, don't bother reading this.) There was originally going to be an original character in this – can you guess who? – but I decided that she was basically a big, walking plot-device, and that she was just making the story too sappy and slow, and that I wanted to explore the characters on the show, not focus on my own. So, after eleven completed chapters, I had to rewrite starting nearly from the beginning. Fun stuff, that. Anyway, I think the plot is stronger without her in it. Hopefully you will think the same.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Heroes._

**Chapter Four**

Alejandro slammed his hand on the table and came striding across the kitchen to him. "Can not help us, why not?"

Sylar looked away, smiling to himself. If they only knew why it would be disastrous for him to go see Mohinder again–

"Mohinder and I don't get along very well."

"Why not?" Alejandro asked, somehow making the simple question sound like a grievous insult. "You know his father."

"Yes, well, that would seem to be the cause of all our problems."

They both stared at him, waiting for an explanation, Maya looking confused and hopeful, Alejandro just looking angry. Sylar liked being in control of others' emotions and fates like this; he had control over so very little else.

"Mohinder is deeply jealous of me. He was in India while I was here with his father. I was more of a son to Chandra than Mohinder was. And that," he said, "hasn't endeared me to Mohinder one bit. He blames me for a lot of things that I didn't do."

"You are so sure you're not _culpable_," Alejandro said under his breath.

"Yes, that's right," Sylar snapped back, his annoyance threatening to take over.

Alejandro seemed to gain courage from this. "I don't think you want to help me and mi hermana. You really want to help us, you take us to the doctor–"

"Did you ever stop to think that maybe I am trying to protect her?" Sylar snapped back. Alejandro leaned back, thrown for the moment off balance. "The son is nowhere near the level of the father; it would be more dangerous to take her to him than to help her learn how to control her gift."

Maya opened her mouth, closed it, said quietly, "Gabr–"

"I was against this from the start," he said quickly. "This is too dangerous, bringing her to him – for all we know, he might decide to turn her in, and then where would we be? What help would she receive in jail? They will kill her, Alejandro, and they will probably kill you, too."

This touched a nerve. Alejandro looked away, backed down. Maya's eyes widened, and her trust in him was restored. "What do we do, Gabriel?"

He lowered his voice soothingly. "You need to learn how to use your power first, to make sure that you really want to get rid of it. It's not like a cold, something that will go away without leaving any vestige of its presence. This is part of you, and you should treat it as such. It's a gift; you're blessed, Maya."

Maya looked over to her brother imploringly, wishing he had the answers.

Sylar took her face in his hands and turned her to look at him. "Maya?"

Her breath hitched, and she couldn't look him in the eye. "I would like to see the doctor." When she saw how Sylar drew away, disappointed in her, she surged forward and said eagerly, "Maybe he can help me, help me–" She searched her memory for what he had said to her before. "–help me achieve my full potential. It might help."

Sylar felt the primal hate that a predator feels when its prey is allowed to escape. He had been letting her talk too much to Alejandro, she'd absorbed some of his ideas, his defiance. He made her question.

But he couldn't let any of that show on his face, had to stay calm, or else he would further frighten the little birdies away, and then what would he feast on? What would he feast on then? He smiled at them, toothy, calm, condescending. "Maya, now, have you been listening–"

"Yes, I have," she said emphatically. "Please, Gabriel. I think this is best."

He pursed his lips and tried to appear as though he had her safety in mind – not a hard feat, because what if whatever cure Mohinder might offer would eliminate her ability? _Well_, he decided, _I haven't heard of any major developments where cures are concerned._ His abilities would probably be back long before Mohinder could even get near to his Maya with that needle.

He nodded, once. It was hard to smile, his mind calculating the possibility that he might be wrong.

Maya hugged him, impulsive like a child. She looked up at him. "Do you know where he lives?"

"It won't be hard to find out."

"Thank you! Thank you!" She was between laughter and tears.

Sylar rested his chin on her head, eyes closed and smiling blissfully, tracing the circumference of her skull with his fingers. It wouldn't be long that he would have to wait; it wouldn't be long.

It was a few days later that Sylar proposed they go see Mohinder. His address hadn't been hard to find at all; his apartment wasn't listed, but his laboratory was. Sylar was surprised and amused to see the same address as the painter's loft. So that's what became of murder victims' property.

He made the mistake of telling them a few days in advance; there was little else that Maya talked about, and she wandered around the apartment, happy and forgetful. Even Alejandro was friendlier to him, although 'friendly' in Alejandro's case meant that he insulted him less and didn't glare at him for as long.

Maya woke him up the morning of the visit by climbing into the pullout bed next to him and generally behaving like an unruly five-year-old who has been promised to go to the zoo that day. He had to physically push her out of the bed before she would leave him alone to catch a few more hours of sleep.

Around noon, they were all getting ready to go, standing at the door and pulling on sweaters against the early spring chill.

Alejandro approached him before the set out and pulled him aside. "Thank you," he said seriously, soberly. That was all. He walked over to Maya and her infectious enthusiasm brought a smile back to his face.

Sylar watched the twins, taking a bit longer than necessary to tie his shoelaces. He began having doubts about the whole taking them to Mohinder idea. What if, on the off-chance, Mohinder had created the cure? Maya couldn't know better; she didn't know her full potential, she didn't know her full power yet. Of course she'd want to get rid of it: it frightened her, this part of her she couldn't understand. Had his powers developed in the same way, Sylar was sure he would have been frightened as well. But, as it were, he'd had to fight for what he had, and he couldn't understand why anyone would want to just give everything up.

"Let's go," he said, tightening his laces.

The best thing about New York in Sylar's eyes was how forgiving it was. Criminals walked the streets everywhere, passing civilian and saint alike, but no one knew it, nor could they ever know it. Maya and Alejandro were not an unusual sight, and no one paid them much attention. Sylar himself looked just like any number of people they passed by.

He walked quickly. They had a lot of blocks to cover and not enough money to take the bus or a cab. He pushed his way through the current of businessmen, mothers, children, delinquents, teachers, lawyers; Maya and Alejandro did their best to follow.

Maya pushed her way up to him during one of the lighter onslaughts of pedestrians, towing Alejandro behind her, and gripped hard onto his arm. "So many people," she said, laughing nervously.

"Welcome to New York," he said.

She laughed again, faintly, shrinking closer to him as they passed a leering gang of teenagers. One cold glare over his shoulder, and the children turned their attention to more fruitful opportunities.

"Do you think that doctor Suresh really has found a way to cure me?"

"No," Sylar said, mentally adding, _I sincerely hope not_. "If he had found the cure, we would have certainly heard about it, somehow. These things don't go unnoticed. Scientists live for the attention that accompanies such a discovery."

"Oh;" she said. "How much longer?"

"A few blocks."

"No, I mean– for the cure."

Sylar said, "Ah. That's a harder question to answer."

Alejandro pulled Maya back and they held a rapid, low conversation of which Sylar was only to distinguish snippets. He stopped in front of Isaac's run-down apartment building and wondered why Mohinder would have chosen this place of all places for his laboratory. Cheap rent, he guessed. No one wanted a flat where someone had been brutally murdered, no matter how convenient the location or how large the floor plan.

"We're here," he said. He caught Maya's arm before she could bound up the steps. "I won't go in with you."

"What?" she said, her face falling slightly.

"I've told you about me and Mohinder. He wouldn't be too pleased to see me."

"Just– just show us where to go? Come in, but not to the door?"

He frowned, remembering the glass walls that not only allowed passersby to look into the apartment, but also for the resident to look out and see who was in the hall. If Mohinder saw him, he wouldn't hesitate to shoot him, and what with his stab wound still healing, being shot was the last thing that he wanted to do.

But he followed her anyways. He would just stop before he got to the windows. Who knew what he might see up there?

To his relief, the walls had been covered with some kind of canvas on the inside. He walked the twins to the door, staying a few feet back in case Mohinder should peer out at the sounds of visitors. "Good luck," he said quietly to them. He crossed his fingers behind his back.

Maya approached him tentatively. She took his hands and leaned up, kissing him on the cheek closer to the mouth than was socially acceptable. All gratitude that Alejandro had been feeling towards him earlier vanished. "Thank you," she said, her voice throaty and quiet.

Alejandro stepped forward and grabbed onto his sister's arm. "Maya, come."

She smiled up at him again, the reverence written there undeniable. She allowed herself to be pulled away, trailing her hand across his shoulder until Alejandro had dragged her too far away. Her eyes never left his, until her brother had knocked several times hard on the door.

The door opened, and Sylar spun around, sauntering easily down the hall.

"Er, hello," Mohinder said. "Can I help you?"

"Doctor Suresh," Maya said. "Please, we were wondering if you can cure me?"

**Author's Note**: A bit longer this time. Please read and review! I thrive on your comments!


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